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York Hospital getting a new emergency department

By LAUREN BOYER

Daily Record/Sunday News

Updated:
11/15/2013 08:22:27 AM EST

WellSpan announced plans to renovate the York Hospital emergency department to the tune of $50 million to be funded in house. The renovation s goals include no waiting and a higher capacity for patients. (Submitted)

Officials at WellSpan York Hospital don't want to make you wait the next time you visit the emergency department.

They don't want to put you in a hallway bed, either.

And don't worry about having to answer private health questions in a room separated from the next patient by a curtain.

Those days may soon be over.

On Thursday, York Hospital officials presented plans for a $50 million project that would rebuild the site's emergency department to meet the needs of an aging and growing population.

The approximately 46,000-square-foot renovation in the area of the hospital's current emergency department will break ground this summer and be finished by 2017, said Keith Noll, hospital president and senior vice president of WellSpan Health.

Meanwhile, during renovations, the department will continue to provide the same level of care for the patients it serves.

The hospital's emergency department is about 20 years old and cares for nearly 78,000 patients annually in a facility built to treat 50,000, Noll said.

The new facility, he added, will be built to accommodate more than 85,000.

"Our goal, believe it or not, is a no waiting emergency department," said Dr. James Amsterdam, physician and chairman emeritus of the York Hospital emergency department. "We hope that about 85 percent of the time, we will achieve that goal."
To decrease waiting times, the hospital will modify the flow of patients.

In the waiting area, patients will immediately be seen by a nurse - bypassing the traditional triage model.

The nurse will send patients to dedicated treatment areas for pediatric, cardiovascular, orthopedic and behavioral health.
Noll said the new emergency department will also feature a fully-dedicated area for minor injuries and illness.

"The hope is that, rather than admitting those patients unnecessarily, we can treat them and send them home to avoid an unnecessary stay in the hospital," he added.

Rooms will be private.

Now, Noll said, "there's not a lot of privacy."

"We don't have individualized rooms. These rooms that are here are actually divided by curtains," he added. "When you're answering questions, often the people in the cubicle next to you can hear the answers. Some of those are very private questions."

The hospital's atrium will be modernized. The helipad will be relocated to a platform above the hospital's access road off South George Street.

Valet services are also under consideration.

WellSpan plans to fully fund the project in-house, Noll said.

The hospital has even tested its yet-to-be-constructed emergency facility with different scenarios.

How?

They built it. Out of cardboard.

The health system rented a warehouse in York County and built a floor plan to scale using the disposable material.

Along with renovations to York Hospital s emergency room, there are plans to create private rooms and a new flow for patients. (Submitted)

"A local vendor created metal plates that held the cardboard up," Amsterdam said. "We mocked up two-thirds of the facility, and then, based upon feedback - what we call case scenarios - ... we redesigned the facility to make it fit our process better.

Below, scroll through the short recap from this morning. It highlights the upcoming changes of the project: